Intelligence analysis support guide: development and validation

Research shows that intelligence analysts do not routinely follow a logical workflow, do not always use critical thinking, and that analysts’ training and experience are unrelated to analysts’ performance. The Analysis Support Guide (ASG) aims to capture, communicate, and encourage good analytic practice. The ASG is informed by organizational intelligence doctrine and past research on intelligence analysis. The ASG includes the generic analytic workflow, prompts for good practice at each stage of the workflow, indicators of good and poor analytic practice, and an analytic investigation questionnaire. The findings of a small-scale content validation study of the ASG are reported here. Fourteen analysts provided detailed feedback on its content. The results informed a revision of the ASG that is currently used to train new and experienced analysts. The ASG can also inform the development of analytic technologies and future research on the psychology of intelligence analysi